The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1887-04-09
FaIIicies Concerning Domestic Service
BY CATHERINE OWEN.

BY CATHERINE OWEN.
While we are hearing of the sui
ferings of those working women who
It is said, prefer ceaseless, hopeless
toll and seml-starvation in their owr
overcrowded garrets to the restraints
and degradation of domestic service,
We may well ask where they have
obtained their nowledge, or rather
lmblbed their prejudice, were it not
that consideration of the matter in
duces one to believe there is no pref
erence. They sew and starve because
others sew and starve, and to do SO
requires no effort, only endurance.
TO take service, if the thought has
ever entered their minds, needs en-
ergy and courage to face new and
unknown conditions of lite, and they
are withheld by vague dread. If;
however, those who get SO far as to
think OF house-work as a possible al
tentative to needle-work are met by
false and prejudiced versions of the
conditions under which servants live,
and the relations they hold to their
employers, it is no wonder if, devil
talized by poor food, weakened by
their unremitting labor, they shrink
from the prospect, and fall back into
the slavery from which they would
tain have emerged. They work and
suffer, and insist that relief can only
come to them in one way-better
pay for the work they do.
No truer service can be rendered
to these unfortunates than to clear
away the false impressions that may
exist in the minds of the women
themselves, or refute by a statement
o! the facts, which any observer can
verify, the foolish ideas afoat as to
the relative position of the domestic
and the sewing woman. For this
reason it should be the aim of every
one who comes in contact with them,
or can reach them in any way, to
show them the contrast between the
comfort they refuse and the misery
they accept
The foolish ideas with regard to
domestic service are that the sewing
woman in her garnet, bare, cold and
hungry, is free, while the servant is
not; that the sewing woman is indie
pendent and cannot be ordered
round" and that her time is her
own" The facts are that the sew
ing woman is slave to the greedy
taskmaster who grinds her down to
the verge of starvation, while the
one who chooses woman's natural
work in the house that needs her is
the really free woman.
If the sewing woman does not like
her work she dares not quit it; to do
so means starvation. If the task
master cheats her she dares not re-
fuse to be cheated; her work will be
taken from her and given to one OF
dozens waiting to take her place. II
she is brutally spoken to, she dares
not resent it; and there are, we are
assured, worse things than cheating
and brutality that she must submit
to without resentment, or be marked
for persecution. So much for being
her own mistress. And this cease
less, ill-paid work is performed under
every form of physical discomfort, in
bad air, in over-crowded rooms, in
winter cold, in torrid summer heat,
with insufficient food, and sickly, ill
clad body The time which she calls
her own, where is it, when the ma
chine runs from morning till night ,
After the days task is done? When
we know the pittance she earns we
may be quite sure that days task
will not be done so long as human
nature can bear up against fatigue.
The time between the cessation OF
work until it begins again must sure
ly be stuper OF exhaustion. Can
the weary woman then give herself
up to the pleasures OF "home"? Can
she take the recreation for which be-
ing "mistress of her own time" is
supposed to give opportunity? Con
trast this veritable slavery with the
freedom of the domestic servant. II
she does not like her place she leaves
Whether she performs her part OF
the bargain between herself and her
employer or not, she is paid. There
are no pretexts for reducing her
wages for work impertectly done,
nor reductions made because the
shirts and collars, or table-linen, she
has undertaken to iron, but does
badly, have to be sent to the laundry
and paid for. If she has temporary
illness, days when some family crisis
the arrival of kindred from abroad,
or wakes, or weddings, or funerals,
make her desire day off, she has il
without loss of money, the mistress
often making strenuous effort, put,
ting off or changing her own plans
for this purpose; for, be it said evel
so gently, there is in the majority O
cases very little choice in the matter
If Della does not get the holiday
she leaves her place at a moment
notice.
1t is only the domestic servant,
among working people, who is thus
paid for the time she enjoys. Tie
shop-girl or factory hand is fined fol
every five minutes she is late or not
working. If she loiters in her work,
eyes are constantly upon her to note
it, and not too gently to reprove her
The domestic is under no such es.
pionage. The workingman works
every hour; if he wants to take day
off, or half a day, he does SO at hi,
own loss, not his employers. A
Charwoman, for whom all the heavy
continuous work is laid out, and who
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